At home and abroad artefact Wednesday - Lakers and World Club Championships licence plates

Prompted by a recent email by Mitty, one of our readers, it's about time we uploaded this particular series of items. As noted by Mitty in his email:

I got the Lakers plate from eBay. I messaged the seller and asked him if he had any other Hellas items for sale in which he said yes, 'club world championship plate'. Sounded interesting so I told him to post it to me. 

I remember seeing many years ago a similar Lakers plate.  

But the Brazil plate is very interesting particularly with the Tony customization. Perhaps this was originally made and purchased in Brazil by one of our traveling supporters.

I think that I've seen a Lakers plate like that before; indeed, perhaps one existed in the club's collection of artefacts. And while I'm not fond of the Lakers' logo (the name I'm not so fussed about; at least we have a lake next to us), the design as presented here looks great, modern and clean.




One assumes those Lakers plates were commissioned by the club. The first Brazil licence plate presented here however seems to bear out Mitty's contention of customisation, though I;m not sure of the full story. When compared to the second Brazil licence plate presented here, it's a different colour, has 'F.C.' instead of 'S.C.', has one assumes the original owner's name on it, and a love heart to boot.

The last licence plate here was located in one of the glass cabinets in the old social club's museum space. At the time I was cleaning out and packing away items from the social club, I found that rather than being a unique item, that there were in fact several more of these in storage. The club may have ended up selling some or all the duplicates (about a half dozen if memory serves me correctly) of these from the merchandise booth after I re-found them.


The existence of the second plate seems to suggest that the green plates were unofficial pieces of merchandise, but any information on the provenance of these items would be appreciated.

As an aside, I seem to recall a custom SMFC plate (SMFC50 perhaps?) being auctioned off, I think around the time of the club's 50th anniversary. There's probably other custom plates that people have actually attached to their vehicles, but the items presented here a more of a 'man cave' kind of item of course.

Thanks to Mitty for sending in the photos of the first two licence plates, it's very much appreciated.

Edit, extra info courtesy of one of our readers
One of our readers was kind enough to send in this as an explanation of the origin of the Brazil plates.

Some local entrepreneur was hanging around the team hotel selling them, he would take orders one day then a couple of days later he'd arrive with the product, I think from memory they cost about 20 real each, 15 bucks back then. The green one I assume was from the same bloke but I never seen it before.

Update November 2018
Here's a Necaxa variant.

More headgear artefact Wednesday - Lakers Headband

Back in July of this year, I put up a post celebrating the Hellas headband, a wonderful piece of South Melbourne Hellas merchandise history. Now in the comments section of that piece, someone mentioned that there was also a Lakers headband, and thanks to collector and friend of the blog Nick Vertsonis, we have an image of the Lakers headband for all to see, so thanks Nick for continuing to share the bounties of your collection with the wider South Melbourne Hellas supporter base.

Lakers artefact Wednesday - Lakers street sign

This arfetact was one of several images uploaded recently by Nick Vertsonis on Twitter, and which I'll be uploading one by one in due course. Now the first thing you need to know is that this is, of course, not a real street sign (der, Paul) but rather, as explained by Nick in email:

a decorative/novelty item to be displayed on a wall or in the garage... the sign was all the rage with all the AFL/NRL clubs at the time, around the mid nineties.

Irrespective of whether or not it was a legit sign, it's an interesting piece of memorabilia, which shows that the club was interested in not only trying out different merchandise ideas, but also a willingness to use the Lakers name, and hell, I'm going to just go out and say it: the logo's sorta crappiness aside, 'Lakers' was by no means the worst nickname that could have been conjured up for that unfortunate situation where we were forced to try and assimilate. At least we had a lake next to us, unlike the LA Lakers who allegedly tried to stop us using the name, though I've never actually seen the hard and fast evidence that they actually tried to do that. But that apocryphal story is so fun, that it just keeps on keeping on, though admittedly helped when I, too, have inadvertently given the story another push via one of Joe Gorman's articles on The Guardian.

It also reminds me of the photo on the left of an actual South Melbourne parking sign - originally posted in a Supermercado article which we've archived - which to me (and especially my dad, who was responsible for paying the parking fines for parking in those areas) always stood a bit menacingly. It makes you wonder though, if we were to ever somehow get back into the top-flight, where would all those people who wouldn't use public transport park? And would the local tramlines - the 12, the 1 and at a pinch the 96, be able to cope? Thank goodness that's not a problem we're ever likely to have to deal with.

Where the hell did that come from?

South Melbourne Mariners? Central Coast Lakers?  South East Central Coast Melbourne Magic Spectres?

Before we get stuck into this, here's the offending article from the World Game site, followed by commentary from several related sources.

A majority of the Central Coast Mariners board has agreed to sell the club to a Melbourne-based consortium, consisting of three South Melbourne directors, for $4 million. 

The World Game understands the deal was agreed on Wednesday, with a 10 percent deposit due on Thursday. 

It was reported in The Australian that a member of the Mariners board flew to Melbourne on Wednesday to meet with an interested party, while a Russia-based investor is still keen to pump $15 million into the club and its valuable land assets. 

It is believed key Mariners investors, chairman Peter Turnbull, Lyall Gorman and Mike Charlesworth, who own a combined 64 percent stake in the club, had been stalling with a view to wooing the Russian group. 

The new arrangement would see the Mariners relocate up to four of their home matches - those perceived to draw the lowest gate - to Melbourne. 

The news is set to come as a relief to the embattled playing group, which has been embroiled in a dispute with the club over unpaid wages. The existing Mariners board met with representatives of Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to resolve the matter. 

Football Federation Australia (FFA) is yet to ratify the agreement but is believed to be satisfied with the nature of the deal. 

Mariners coach Graham Arnold praised the attitude of his players in a torrid week of speculation that culminated in reports they were prepared to take strike action if their wage demands were not met. 

“It’s been a tough week for the players,” Arnold said. “But they are a great bunch of boys and the leadership group has done a great job of keeping them all together.”
“Today is the first day that I have seen them because I gave them a few days off, but morale is high.” 

“Before training the Peter Turnbull and Mike Charlesworth had a chat to them over loudspeaker on the phone to inform them what’s going on and I think that’s relaxed a lot of the players.” 

“On the football side of it the players have a job to do. I have a job to do as coach and we’ve just got to get on with things. We’ve got a big game against Adelaide this weekend and we’ll make sure we’re ready for it.” 

Arnold said he has confidence in the club’s capacity to rectify its ownership and financial issues. 

“There has to be a resolution and I am pretty sure that it will be sorted out quite quickly,” he said. 

“There’s no hiding the fact Peter Turnbull has publicly asked before for new investment in the ownership. It’s probably come to the stage now where something has to happen.”

Ray Gatt, chief soccer writer from the Sydney Morning Herald

Can tell you with absolute assurance that the SBS story is totally wrong
— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

So to start off with, he's claimed Mike Charlesworth will take over the Mariners, but then goes on to say:

@deanrosario lol.I've been wrong many times and will happen again! If I am now then so be it.at least I've been at forefront of this story
— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

Professional Footballers Association
They've also released a statement on the matter.

PFA MEDIA RELEASE

Sydney: Thursday 21 March 2013

The playing group of the Central Coast Mariners has instructed the PFA to express, in the strongest possible terms, their frustration and disappointment surrounding the negotiations of change of ownership at the club. 

Despite been assured on a number of occasions that payment of their salaries would be imminent, these promises have failed to materialise placing the players under enormous financial pressure and hardship. In some cases the players have been unable to pay for their families groceries.

The players have acted in good faith however there is a limit to their goodwill. The players have agreed not to take any industrial action at this time but the PFA does not rule out this possibility in the coming weeks.

President Simon Colosimo said “Once again this matter shows the precarious nature of being a professional footballer in Australia and ironically comes at a time when the PFA is seeking to negotiate greater contract security with FFA as part of our new CBA”.

Chairman John Poulakakis said “The players have suffered enough. Once again they are being forced to subsidize poor governance and management of the game. The players’ basic entitlements have been trampled on. Whatever is creating this delay must be addressed immediately. It’s time for certainty and the FFA and the club’s Directors to do the right thing by the players and the fans.”

Central Coast's official point of view

We can state that moving matches from Gosford to Melbourne is not in our plans. #aleague
— CentralCoastMariners (@CCMariners) March 21, 2013

And then you have Ray Gatt again 

Mariners deal done. Papers to be signed off tomorrow. Mike Charlesworth now controlling owner. Club in good hands 

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

What we're going to take a guess at
That a South takeover or relocation was to be used or is going to be used, or has been used as a way of forcing a resolution to the longstanding issues with regards the ownership of Central Coast Mariners. Somebody somewhere at FFA headquarters got fed up with 'the Russians are coming' rumours, and this is how this situation has been resolved.

The best part of all of this
That so many people were caught out this, I suppose rather like our entry into the Singapore Cup a few years back, albeit here on a much funnier scale.

My ultimate position, for future reference
The only acceptable solution for any theoretical South Melbourne A-League bid, is

• a member run and owned club
• called South Melbourne
• playing in blue and white
• with all games in Melbourne
• with approval granted for entry by the members

Bring anything less than that to the table, and you can forget having my vote. No Pirates, no Lakers, no mergers, half-arsed takeovers

Whatever the end result of this is
That was the most fun I've had over a three hour period for a long time. Aussie soccer delivers the goods again, and long may it continue to do so.

South women have new site - but are they even our women anymore?

You can visit them, here. But are they still part of the affiliation system? Or the Super Awesome One Big Happy Family System? I don't know to be honest. If they aren't, well... they probably shouldn't be using that logo - the Albert Park Women's club use of a re-jigged Lakers era logo notwithstanding (let's be honest, anyone can have that for free). And they should probably get themselves a new name. In which case it's nice that their history section mentions, more or less, that they are not a direct continuation of the original South Melbourne Hellas women's team, but rather a relocated Greensborough/Nunawading.

Not that there's anything wrong with that of course. And who knows, maybe there's a huge misunderstanding on my part as to what the hell's going on down near pit lane. Let's hope it gets sorted out soon. But we said that a month or two back, and nothing good seemed to happen. It's all gone very quiet.